Inherent
in the young Prince Sarvarthasiddha, as we investigated in BC Canto 1
(The Birth of Something Beautiful), were the same virtues that would
later adorn the enlightened Buddha. And inherent in the transmission
of this legend, it could be argued, is the core principle and
teaching of the buddha-nature.

This core principle, in my book, is also the core principle of Alexaner work. Hence FM Alexander said:

"When an
investigation comes to be made it will be found that every single
thing we do in the work is exactly what is done in Nature, where the
conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do
it consciously."

The principle is maybe
even further to the fore in Aśvaghoṣa's other kāvya poem, the
epic tale of Beautiful Happiness (or “Handsome Nanda”), in which
handsome Nanda is originally strikingly beautiful, then proceeds to
make himself ugly through ascetic end-gaining, before ultimately
realizing himself as Beautiful Happiness itself.

In today's verse,
on the surface, Gautamī is listing some of the young prince's
original virtues in passing, but the ostensible gist of her words is the rhetorical question asked in the 4th pāda: Does it behove a prince possessed of such
shining virtues to hide himself away in an ashram?

Below the surface, I
think the relationship between
the pairs of elements in the first three pādas is by no means incidental.

Aśvaghoṣa as I hear
him is inviting us to realize the principle that good balance and
coordination (as manifested by a lion's stride), a golden lustre, and
a resonant voice, are not virtues that any of us can take possession
of by direct means. But these are indeed virtues that can be
approached by indirect means – which is exactly the point of the
kind of work on the self that FM Alexander called “an exercise in
finding out what thinking is.”

Thus, thinking arms
to hang loose and lengthen, thinking eyeballs to expand,
and thinking chest to widen might be perfect examples of the
kind of thoughts discussed yesterday, as fit to encase the cranium of the best of
men (narendra-maulī-pariveṣṭana-kṣamāḥ).

Can
thinking arms to hang loose and lengthen cause a
person's stride to become better co-ordinated and more cat-like? Alexander work demonstrates that Yes, it can, through the medium of
what Alexander called “the primary control of the use of the self.”
The point is that undue stiffness in the arms and shoulders gets
in the way of the correct employment of the head-neck-back
relationship that Alexander called “the primary control.” But
when such stiffness has been prevented by the right kind of
preventing thinking, then movement, when it comes, is bound to be
easier and freer.

Can thinking eyeballs
to expand cause a person's lustre to become more golden? Again
Alexander work demonstrates that Yes, it can, again indirectly,
through the medium of the primary control.

Can thinking chest
to widen make a person's verse more resonant? Yes, absolutely it
can.

So a naturally wide
chest is (1), in the first place, conducive to vocal resonance.

But understanding this
and (2) going directly for a wide chest and resonant voice – e.g.
by doing bench-presses to build up the muscles around the chest –
is liable not to work, because resonance is a more a function of how
much space is vacated on the inside, and not so much a function of how
much external space is occupied by muscle.

Clearly understanding
both these truths, FM Alexander, whose work began with vocal control,
evolved a technique that would bring about a widening of the chest by
indirect means, from the inside. This indirect means involves not muscular doing but thinking. Or
rather it involves non-thinking – thinking, but not thinking as people generally
understand thinking.

None of this, I guess
from verses like today's verse and yesterday's verse, would have been
news to Aśvaghoṣa.

A baby is born with a
voice of incredibly thunderous resonance. As an adult under stress,
with stiff arms and shoulders, tired and strained eyes, and a tight
and narrow chest, that human being no longer sounds so good. But if,
by working on himself, he learns consciously to allow exactly what
was done in Nature, when the conditions were right, that person is
reclaiming his original buddha-nature.

The
4th pāda, below the surface, is asking whether or not
such a man, or such a woman, deserves a life in an ashram?

Does it behove a person
of such splendid golden lustre to hide his light under a bushel? The
ostensible purport of Gautamī's rhetorical question is that no, it
rather behoves a shining prince to carry the banner for the royal
family, vigorously participating in public life, and carrying on the
royal line.

Below the surface,
Aśvaghoṣa's intention might be to cause us to consider the same
question not with reference to a shining prince but with reference to
a person like Nanda who, after he had completed his task, the Buddha
addressed as follows:

Walking
the transcendent walk, you have done the work that needed to be done:
in you, there is not the slightest thing left to work on. / From now
on, my friend, go with compassion, freeing up others who are pulled
down into their troubles. // SN18.54 // The lowest sort of man only
ever sets to work for an object in this world. But a man in the
middle does work both for this world and for the world to come. / A
man in the middle, I repeat, works for a result in the future. The
superior type, however, tends towards abstention from positive
action. // 18.55 // But deemed to be higher than the highest in this
world is he who, having realized the supreme ultimate dharma, /
Desires, without worrying about the trouble to himself, to teach
tranquillity to others. // 18.56 // Therefore forgetting the work
that needs to be done in this world on the self, do now, stout soul,
what can be done for others. / Among beings who are wandering in the
night, their minds shrouded in darkness, let the lamp of this
transmission be carried. // SN18.57 //